BRIGG TOWN'S MOST THRILLING GAME A GIANTKILLING CUP FINAL WIN

Details of the most thrilling and memorable Brigg Town Cricket Club match of all time (in our eye-witness opinion) have kindly been furnished by Neil Simpson, of Broughton, who takes a keen interest in local sporting history.
Brigg, then in division three of the Broughton Evening League, turned giantkillers in summer 1978 to win the Knockout Cup, defeating division one champions Messingham in the final played at Broughton... by a very narrow margin.
Neil has supplied us with a weekly newspaper cutting giving full details of this very close encounter.
Brigg only posted a modest 100 for nine, but tight bowling and good fielding contained Messingham to 99 for seven in reply.
All-rounder Dave Foster was named man of the match - top scoring with 39 and then taking two wickets for 20 runs.
However, there would have been no arguments if this accolade had gone instead to Bob Goulby, the former Brigg Sugar Factory player.
In addition to taking four for 14, Bob kept his head while fielding in the covers to effect a match-winning run out from the last ball of the match.
We played well over 700 games for Brigg Town between 1974 and 2004, and this stands out above all others as the most memorable.
Brigg Town took the handsome silver Dinsdale Trophy back to their then base, landlord Tom Merriman's White Horse pub on Wrawby Street, to celebrate.
Town had beaten another top-flight team in the semi-final, Scunthorpe's Appleby-Frodingham, by only two runs.
Earlier rounds had seen Brigg defeat Winteringham by five runs and then Baysgarth (Barton) by seven runs.
So every game in this memorable cup run was a very close encounter.
The final drew a sizeable attendance, but few spectators expected to see Brigg triumph.
We played in all the cup games that season without contributing much with bat or ball, but even a few runs saved here and there in the field proved useful in view of the close nature of the ties.
Tom Taylor, then in charge of sport at the Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph, got wind of Brigg's giantkilling win and asked us to pen a report as club secretary. We'd have been happy to do so free of charge, but Tom insisted on payment, which duly arrived as a cheque several weeks later. We were paid per line printed... and there were quite a few!
It was the first time we'd done any paid work for the Telegraph, but six years after this final we joined the Telegraph sports department. That was after Tom - the father of future England football manager Graham - had retired.
However, Tom continued to report on Scunthorpe United home games and also contributed a popular Talking Sport column to the weekly Scunthorpe Target for a good number of years after that, in a freelance capacity.
For a couple of seasons while Ian Botham was a Scunthorpe United squad member we used to cover Scunthorpe Reserves if he was playing at the Old Show Ground, on behalf of Tom's sports agency, sending details to national papers as well as penning reports for the local Telegraph.
Everything this star England Test cricketer (later Sir Ian and now Lord Botham) did on the field in the 1980s was newsworthy.
Brigg Town Cricket Club purchased individual trophies for all members of the 1978 cup-winning squad. Ours is pictured above - the inscription on the base now showing some wear after 43 years. Also pictured in the 1970s are Bob Goulby and Dave Foster (top left) plus part of the weekly newspaper report supplied by Neil Simpson.